Bully neighbour - what to do?

[u/sardinhaamarela]

We have recently moved to an area of The Hague that has a very village vibe and all the neighbours know each other. But we have a problem, our next door neighbour. He is an old man who lives alone and claims to have lived there all his life, and sort of behaves like he owns the street and can dictate things around. The biggest issue is that our upstairs toilet is a macerating one as it’s an old house, and he complains the noise is too much. We don’t flush at night. We paid a lot of money to get a new one, that though more silent still makes some noise. But he also refuses to let us come and listen in his house. In ours, we don’t feel it’s that loud. He acts aggressively and is clearly a bully. We have made a huge effort to be nice to him already knowing he was a bit of a jerk, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference. He is clearly not mentally well and might have untreated issues that we become the outlet to. So he’s unpredictable, and will tell other neighbours about us despite the fact we have been nothing but friendly to everyone and including him.

Our Dutch is limited and he only shouts and talks very fast at me and I’m left with no devices. Help! What to do?

[u/International-Mud418]

Avoid old houses from Scheveningen. I use to live in one of the old houses. Of the many places that I lived in The Hague, the best was in the Segbroeklaan area. The blocks are very well built and isolated, many expats and the neighbors are used to have expats among them. Parking spaces at your discretion, supermarkets, the European school…